


The Ghosts That We Knew

by lheadley



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: And a fair amount of crying, But it all turns out OK, But some slight references to sexy times, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hugs, Looking back on past events, M/M, Mumford and Sons derived, No Porn, Really just fluff, lots of hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lheadley/pseuds/lheadley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek was not supposed to dwell on the past. Stiles never liked it when he dwelt on the past. But sometimes, some little thing would trigger a wave of memories. Bad memories, of a dark place and a dark time in his life. But those memories just reminded him of the light that illuminated him now.</p><p>This is the story of how Stiles showed Derek the way out of his darkness.</p><p>This is the story of how Stiles saved Derek. </p><p>Yet again.</p><p>Because we all need a little Stiles in our lives.</p><p> </p><p>Inspired, obviously, by Mumford and Sons "The Ghosts That We Knew"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You saw my pain

> You saw my pain, washed out in the rain  
>  And broken glass, saw the blood run from my veins  
>  But you saw no fault, no cracks in my heart  
>  And you knelt beside my hope torn apart
> 
> But the ghosts that we knew  
>  Will flicker from view  
>  And we'll live a long life
> 
> So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light  
>  Cos oh they gave me such a fright  
>  But I will hold as long as you like  
>  Just promise me we'll be alright

Looking back.... but Derek knew that he was not supposed to look back. Stiles was always very clear on this point, and would needle him about it incessantly if he knew Derek had been thinking of times past. Stiles was forever telling him to look at what he had now, or look to the fantastic possibilities of his life ahead, but never look back with regret. But this was not looking back with regret; quite the reverse. So... Looking back, Derek knew that his life had changed that evening after the wolf moon. The whole arc of his life had altered in a moment, sitting in what had then still been the burned out shell of his family home. He had not known it at the time, but that was when he had hit rock bottom. It was also when someone had started to drag him, slowly, painfully back. 

Derek had always marked the death of his family on the wolf moon. On the actual calendar day he paid his human respects, rather perfunctorily, at the Beacon Hills cemetery. But as werewolves were governed by the lunar cycle, it had always seemed appropriate to him that he should remember what he had lost on the lunar anniversary of their death, particularly as the wolf moon was so important in their family. The fact that the date shifted each year was irrelevant, it was a way of remembering who they were. A way of remembering what he had done. He could not mark the occasion on the evening of the moon – the control would be too shaky – but the day after he could revisit the family home, and remember. 

That year had been terrible. The alphas had gone, but his pack was barely there anymore. Isaac had been nervous, seemingly edging a little closer towards Scott as every day passed. Boyd had been withdrawn, mourning, resentful. Erica was gone. Peter was lost to any kind of real sanity or sense of loyalty. Derek clearly remembered how he had waited until twilight to return home, shifting restlessly in the loft he had been living in as the sun had slowly turned blood red – alpha red his mother had always described it as - and had sunk on the horizon. No matter where he lived, the house in the woods had been “home” to him. He had taken, as he did every year, a small bunch of woodland plants – berries and foliage, given the season. An improvised wreath, certainly nothing shop bought. Something from the woods, something personal, something that would speak to the wolf part of his family. Even the humans in his family had been tied to the wolf. As the moon had slowly risen over the town, showing occasionally through the scudding clouds of an incoming rainstorm, Derek had placed the flowers at the entrance to the cellar, at the back of the old hallway. And then he had slumped to the floor, dejected.

Derek had felt the depth of his failure. That was what had made it so bad. He had known that the bonds of the pack were weakening, and he had physically felt himself weakening as an alpha as those bonds frayed into wispy threads. Even Scott had been a better alpha than he was, and Derek had known it. A bitten wolf – not that Derek was _prejudiced_ , absolutely not – but a bitten not a born wolf whose pack had consisted of a couple of hangers on and only one proper member, and that sole member only a human. Derek had known that the bond between Stiles and Scott was what had made Scott so strong an alpha. A bond that strong, a level of trust that secure, a love – or whatever it was – that ran that deep - it was bound to show up in the alpha qualities. 

Derek had truly felt just how much he had failed. The weakness of his own pack and his failure to forge the sort of bonds Scott and Stiles had achieved so effortlessly now taunted him. He had failed his family, his mother most of all. He had failed Laura, who had done so much to shield him from the terrible consequences of his actions. He had failed as a wolf. He had never even begun to succeed as a man, had never been a man. His human soul had died on the wolf moon of his sixteenth year when he had killed his family. And now, it was as if he had felt the reproving eyes of everyone he had lost staring down at him from the desolate surroundings of his house, as he had leant against the rotting wall of the hallway. His siblings, his parents, his cousins, and now Laura and Erica had joined the list of ghosts from the past who haunted his nightmares, ceaselessly reminding him of the litany of his failures. The damage and dereliction that had surrounded him seemed to be a mirror, reflecting back the dark and twisted damage within him. 

Derek could remember with an aching kind of pain how the anger had swelled within him. Anger at Kate for everything she had done. Anger at Peter for what he had done to Laura. Anger at Laura, for not waiting for him to travel to Beacon Hills to help when she had returned. Anger even at Scott, for stepping in to give leadership to his pack as if to underscore his own failings as a leader. But above all else, Derek had felt a surge of anger at himself, for letting down the memory of his family, for failing in every expectation that they had had for him. 

Derek had allowed his emotions to overtake him. Afterwards, Stiles always said Derek that had been crying, but that was the wrong word. Crying implied something far too calm. Crying was something barely a stage up from weeping, shedding a tear in the manner of the heroine of an eighteenth century novel. Derek had not cried. He had sobbed. Great waves of emotion had overpowered him physically, moving his whole body in convulsions. His breath had started to come in huge, ragged gasps as the enormity of everything he had lost and everything he had failed to achieve overwhelmed him. He remembered repeatedly thudding his head against the crumbling plaster of the wall behind him, and how he had beaten his fists in anguish against the floor.

Derek had howled. That he remembered doing that very vividly. The sound and the feeling that accompanied it still resonated down the intervening years. It had not been the howl of the wolf; a signal of power, of raw animal emotion, a rallying cry for the pack. Derek had howled like a human, a child howling in fear – in terror – desperate for its mother. Years later, late one evening, Scott had confessed to Derek (with extreme embarrassment) that when Jackson had started to transform in the hospital, he had shrunk away, looking to his mother to zip up the body bag and hide what he did not want to face. The absurdity of a werewolf cowering away and expecting a human to help was risible, of course – but Derek had not laughed at Scott’s confession. Scott had been a werewolf and a powerful werewolf, it was true: but Scott had also been a sixteen year old boy back then, and at that particular moment he had behaved like any other scared sixteen year old boy who instinctively wanted his mom to protect him from all that was bad in the world. Childishness had taken control of Scott then. It was a level of childishness that Derek had understood. It was what he had felt that night. He wanted his mom to tell him it was going to be all OK, to protect him from everything that was wrong.

But Derek had as good as killed his mom and the rest of his family. As he howled out, tears coursing down his face, he had lashed out with his fists. He had caught the glass pane at the bottom of the door to the back garden, he remembered, the fragile glass shattering immediately on contact. Shards of glass had sliced open his hand, lodging in his fingers. Blood had started to stream out, unchecked, where the glass had stayed lodged. Derek had stared through his tears, momentarily stilled in his sobs – until he had suddenly thought “just like a hunter’s arrow”. Werewolves could not heal if the arrow, or the glass, was still in the wound. The thought, and its associations, have brought on fresh convulsions. The enormity of loss had overtaken him, and black waves of depression had broken against him.

 

Derek still did not know how long he had sat like that. His throat had become raw from the wracking sobs, he knew. He had lost all sense of his surroundings, staring into the dark abyss of his life. He had not registered the storm outside. He had not registered the small puddle of water on the floor where the rain blew through the newly broken window pane. He had not registered the sound of the Jeep pulling up next to his Camaro in the clearing outside the house. He had not registered the feet running up the stairs. His senses had partially registered the scent when the front door had opened. There had been a reflexive impulse – Derek had caught the scent of an alpha, or almost. Stiles and Scott had had very, very similar scents back then. They still overlapped to a significant degree even today, but back then they had almost the same smell, and it would have taken more awareness than Derek had been capable of to register that difference.

Derek’s wolf had not had time to react. Stiles had called out from the door. Something sarcastic, of course. The sarcasm had never diminished over the years – except once, some years after that night. But that had been much later, when things had been very different. Stiles had moved in without any sense of caution, crossing the hallway without seeing Derek at first. And then he had caught sight of Derek’s slumped form, still shaking with silent tears.

Later, much later, Derek had asked Stiles what he had thought as he had taken in the scene before him: Derek, half drenched with rain, streaked with blood from the embedded glass in his hand, sobbing in the darkened hallway of his former home next to a homemade wreath. Stiles had told him he had initially panicked, assuming some kind of supernatural attack. He had rushed – heedlessly, of course – to Derek’s side. Stiles had thought there was some kind of supernatural danger, so of course he had rushed blindly into it. Stiles had told him that it was only when he had gotten near, and was kneeling by Derek’s side and had taken in the wreath and comprehended what that must mean, that he had realised that this was something far worse.

Stiles had behaved instinctively, Derek knew now. It was the instinct of a truly good person. Stiles had pushed his way behind Derek, and had put his arms around Derek’s shuddering body, and had held him. At first that was all he had done, nothing more than the pressed contact of their bodies, the tugging hug of Stiles’s arms, rocking back and forth as Derek moved – saying nothing. Derek could remember his scent, the feel of his arms enveloping his own with surprising strength. Derek could remember, as if it were yesterday, how Stiles had rested his head on Derek’s shoulder. And eventually, as Derek’s body had slowly stilled, Stiles had whispered softly and repeatedly into Derek’s ear:

“It’s OK Derek. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.”

Eventually Derek’s tears had dried, and he had subsided into a more gentle rocking motion, allowing Stiles to loosen his hold a little in order to cautiously tug the shards of glass from his rain soaked hands. With the glass out, Stiles had then pulled him back into the warm closeness of his embrace.

“It will be alright Derek. Trust me. It will be alright.”

The way Stiles had said that was one of Derek’s most vivid memories. Those eleven words were now his anchor – had been his anchor almost from that moment on. Those words were what kept his humanity intact. Sitting in the dark, in the middle of his destroyed home, surrounded by the memories – the ghosts - of his family, those few words kindled the first faint stirrings of hope in Derek. Hope that he might become a better wolf. Hope that he might become a better man. And somewhere deep in his subconscious, buried far beneath the many layers of pain, there had been a tiny spark of light in the darkness of his despair; a hope of a different kind. A hope that was intimately bound up in the person who had found him. 

_A hope that he would not be alone._


	2. They will hear me roar

>   
>  So lead me back, turn south from that place  
>  And close my eyes to my recent disgrace  
>  Cos you know my call and will share my all  
>  And our children come they will hear me roar
> 
> So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light  
>  Cos oh they gave me such a fright  
>  But I will hold as long as you like  
>  Just promise me we'll be alright  
> 

For two weeks after Stiles had found him, Derek had hidden. He had felt humiliated. That anyone had found him in that state was awful. That it had been Stiles, of all people, was almost too much to bear. And overlaying that sense of humiliation there was a sense that he had somehow disgraced himself with someone to whom he should have appeared strong. Derek had holed himself up in his loft, only leaving very late at night to forage for food in the aisles of the nearby twenty four hour convenience store. The advantage of that was that he had slept mainly during the day. The ghosts of his past had haunted his dreams again – whispered accusations of the extent of his failure, of his responsibility for what had happened. Waking in daylight helped. Not much, but a little.

Stiles, of course, had refused to be ignored. Stiles was not someone who could ever be ignored – to this day the brightness of Stiles’s personality seemed to demand attention. He had walked calmly into Derek’s loft one evening, and sat down unasked. Derek had tried to intimidate him with a glare, but it had seemed to have no effect.

“I blame myself for my mom’s death, even now. Even though I know it is absurd. But I still blame myself.”

Stiles had just blurted it out. Derek had not known what to say.

“But I realised, years ago, that that was just a dark part of my subconscious, pushing its way to the surface. And the way to beat it was to push right back. Carry on regardless, and be the best that I can be for her sake. And if I fail, then it just means I need to try again. Do you know Winston Churchill used to suffer from depression? His ‘black dog’ he used to call it. Pun intended in the current circumstances. You should realise I am not going to say anything if you don’t want me to, not even to Scott. I have told him there was something that happened the night I came over to talk about coordinating pack patrols, and that I can’t tell him, but that is it. He won’t ask. He trusts me. But I think you should speak to him. I did. Scott is great at listening, and he gives the best hugs of anyone I know.”

Derek had just stared. He had not known what to say. Stiles had stood up, and moved over to stand next to him. Suddenly, with a characteristically convulsive, impulsive, impetuous movement, Stiles had pulled Derek into a tight hug. Derek stood rigid, arms by his sides – completely at a loss as to what he should do.

“Derek, I understand. I really do. For God’s sake, don’t bottle this up. You can call me whenever you need me to listen.”

Derek had surprised himself when he had suddenly returned the hug, holding onto Stiles with all his human force and burying his face into Stiles’s neck. He had been able to feel the dark abyss slowly receding, as he had stood breathing in Stiles’s scent, feeling Stiles’s hands rubbing up and down his back in the slightly erratic way that Stiles still had. Derek had closed his eyes tightly against the looming darkness, squeezing them even tighter as he felt the tears slowly coursing out to trickle down his face and onto the rumpled plaid cotton of Stiles’s shirt.

 

Stiles had come over every evening for a fortnight. At first, nothing had been said. Stiles had cooked for him, sometimes. They had watched DVDs on Stiles’s laptop – Derek had had no television, and very few items of furniture. They had sat side by side on the couch, the laptop resting on the seat of a wooden chair. Occasionally Derek had leaned into Stiles, craving the physical contact yet not daring to ask for more than the pressure of their shoulders together. But Derek had never once had to ask for more. Stiles had just known, and had enveloped Derek in an embrace whenever he most needed it. Derek had never understood it – still didn’t. It was not an instinct, because the word instinct implied something that was too automatic, too reflexive. There was deliberation behind Stiles’s actions, and a complete understanding of what was required. It was a bond, but not something fragile; an unbreakable bond. Back then Derek had barely understood what it was. He still was not sure, but at least now he understood something of the depth of what lay between them.

After a fortnight, Stiles had not bothered to get out his laptop. He had cooked Derek some food – a rare steak, Derek remembered. He had sat with Derek while Derek had eaten. And then he had pulled Derek into a hug and said softly:

“I think you should talk about it.”

And so Derek had talked about it. Everything. It was the first time he had talked about it to anyone – after all, who else could he have ever spoken to? He could never have told Laura. Peter seemed to have connected the events into some semblance of the truth, but Peter was not someone anyone could talk to now. So he talked to Stiles about everything. The fire. Kate. Why he felt the need to use “the gift” to help those who were vulnerable. How he was haunted by the memories of everything that he had done, tormented by his failings and the way he had betrayed his family. He had talked, hesitatingly, of his jealousy for Scott – how it hurt to see Scott succeeding where he had failed – even succeeding with members of Derek’s own pack. For the first time since he had been sixteen Derek had let down all the barriers, and had opened his heart entirely to someone.

Much later, when the sobs had been brought under control, Derek had lain on the sofa with his head in Stiles’s lap. Stiles had gently stroked his hair – it was something they still did. Stiles had whispered words of comfort, promising that everything would be alright, as Derek had cried his way through eight years of repressed emotion. But as the first wrenching anguish abated, Derek had heard a more practical tone to Stiles’s voice.

“I know what we must do.”

The “we” in that sentence had jolted Derek.

 

 

It had taken Stiles a week to persuade Derek – a long week, when Derek had argued and pleaded. Stiles had been calmly insistent. Stiles had talked to Scott, giving him just the edited highlights he had said. Scott had turned up at the loft the evening after that conversation with Stiles, and had thrown himself into a hug with Derek. Derek’s wolf had rebelled at the proximity of another alpha, but Scott had carried on regardless. Scott had never been a typical alpha. And Derek had suddenly felt stronger, with Scott treating him as an equal. Perhaps some of Scott’s alpha authority had been shared that evening. 

After a week Derek had been convinced. He and Stiles had left the house, after a moment standing quietly in the hallway by the wreath. Scott had stayed with Peter in the care home, to make sure he did not try to leave, his irreparably damaged mind pulled by the force of the pack. Allison had been in the woods, at a discrete distance, providing additional security (not that any other hunters had been in the neighbourhood for months). Derek and Stiles had tracked south from the house, to the cliff overlooking the town. A large rock jutted out. Stiles had let go of Derek’s hand and pushed him gently in the direction of the rock. Slowly Derek had clambered to the edge, pushing back at the whispering doubts that still lingered in his mind. He had shifted, thrown back his head, and let out a summoning roar.

Stiles and Derek had waited, quietly, at the foot of the rock. Isaac had been the first to arrive – confused, slightly hopeful. Boyd had come later, more slowly, but drawn by the call of the alpha. Derek had stood in front of them, holding Stiles’s hand once again, and had talked to his pack – letting them in, giving them an understanding that helped lay the foundations for rebuilding the bonds between them all.

 

 

That had been the night, back at the loft, that Stiles had kissed him. Derek could remember the shock – not a surprise kind of shock, but an electric jolt, a warmth that seemed to emanate in his stomach and slowly spread across his body as Stiles had touched his lips against Derek’s. Softly at first, and then with an increasing passion, as Derek had melted into the intimacy and began to kiss him back. That had not been the night that they had made love. That had come later, although only a week later. A gentle, romantic evening that had them clinging to one other in a confusion of sheets and pillows on Derek’s bed. After, Derek had been breathing quietly against Stiles’s neck, occasionally chasing small kisses along his jaw line. Stiles had been stroking his hand through Derek’s hair.

“It will be alright. I promise.”

And Derek had known it would be.


	3. So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

> Hold me still bury my heart on the coals  
> Hold me still bury my heart next to yours
> 
> So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light  
> Cos oh they gave me such a fright  
> But I will hold on with all of my might  
> Just promise me we'll be alright
> 
> But the ghosts that we knew  
> Made us black and all blue  
> But we'll live a long life  
> And the ghosts that we knew  
> Will flicker from view  
> And we'll live a long life  
> 

The first wolf moon after Stiles had found him had been nothing like before. Stiles had come with him to the house, holding his hand as he had laid the wreath. The warmth of Stiles’s touch, the slight pressure of his fingers in Derek’s grip at just the right moment – it was things like that which had brought Derek back from the abyss. The “black dog” of his depression was – if not entirely tamed – under proper control. He had stood next to Stiles, quietly recounting stories of his family. Then Boyd had placed his own offering, and talked of Erica. Isaac had talked of his dad, as he had once been, and of his brother. And Scott and Allison had stood there silently, making their peace with the ghosts of their pasts. Peter hadn’t been there, but Derek and Stiles and Scott had visited him that afternoon in his care home – he was, after all, a bond between all three of them. They had decided it was not safe to take Allison with them. The two packs had achieved a strength that they had never lost since. Scott’s pack had been all human but none the less strong for it – his bonds with Stiles and Allison had been enough to give it the peculiar strength that marked it out. Derek’s pack had recovered slowly at first, but by that wolf moon the bonds had been almost as tight as the bonds of Scott’s pack, with Stiles the force that had moulded both groups together.

 

 

It was a little after the second wolf moon after Stiles had found him that Derek had asked. The house had been refurbished and Derek had come back home. The ghosts of the past still surfaced from time to time, but the thought of Stiles was normally enough to banish them. “The Patronus against your Dementors” as Stiles had put it. Stiles had come back from college for the weekend, and they were lying on a blanket in front of the fire in the main living room. Parts of the house still needed work, but Derek had made sure that at least one space was finished, a place they could spend time together away from the plaster dust and the reminders of decorating that had still to be undertaken. Derek had stroked his hand gently along the smooth skin of Stiles’s torso, down to his thigh, marvelling at the way in which the light from the coal fire cast alternating shadows and brightness across the pale perfection of his body. Stiles had been nuzzling his way into Derek’s neck, both of them relaxing in the contented afterglow of a (temporarily) exhausted passion. Derek had not planned to say it, at least not at that moment, but something about that time and that place -Stiles’s heart beating steadily on top of his own as they lay together –had just clicked. 

“Marry me.”

He had said it tentatively, and was immediately afraid – terrified – that Stiles might say no. Stiles had lifted his head from Derek’s collarbone.

“What?” He had sounded a little dazed.

“Ummm.”

“Well, that was articulate. But as long as that ‘Ummm’ meant ‘Stiles I cannot live without you and I will devote my life to giving you love, blow jobs, and curly fries’ in that order, then the answer is yes.”

Derek had grasped Stiles’s head firmly with both hands, stilling his movement and staring up into his face intently as if to check that he had meant what he had just said. Then he had pulled Stiles into an impassioned, joyful kiss – their naked bodies intertwined in the glowing light of the fire.

And that had been that. 

 

 

The wedding had been quiet. Neither side had large families, but both packs were there, plus some additional people. Deaton and Morrell. Melissa McCall. Chris Argent had been discretely in the background but heartfelt in his congratulations. Lydia had, of course, taken on the organisation and design of the whole day, with Danny providing the muscle as she had thrown the house into chaos and then miraculously created tasteful elegance at the last minute (Danny sweating to within an hour of the ceremony). Scott had made a remarkably witty best man’s speech, which Derek was still convinced Stiles had written – Stiles continued to deny it to this day. Isaac had given a quieter best man’s speech, shyly, but just as much from the heart. Stiles had foresworn sarcasm for the whole day, as a “special wedding present.” True to his promise, he had woken Derek in the small hours of the morning the following day with some sarcastic quip, and it had never stopped since. The Sheriff had given a somewhat choked speech. He had started out warning Derek to be prepared for a lifetime of salad and fussing if he so much as tried to eat a burger, before pausing for a long moment, turning to Stiles and saying how proud Stiles’s mother would have been of how he had turned out, and how much Stiles had meant to him and had helped him overcome the loss of his wife. Then he turned to Derek.

“Derek, I knew your family well. And I know for certain how proud your parents would be of you today too. The person” a quick pause to check the serving staff were out of the room “and the alpha you have become is because of them. But it is also because of you. I could not have let Stiles go to anyone who did not have the strength and character that you have shown, and who did not have the love I know you two have.”

Derek had not said anything, but he had clutched at Stiles’s hand very tightly at those words. And when the Sheriff had finished and proposed a toast, Derek had pulled him into a tight hug and had whispered to him

“Thank you. And thank you for trusting me with your son.”

 

 

Derek’s reverie as he stood alone in the kitchen was interrupted by the scampering of two pairs of small feet. 

“Uncle Derek, can we have some ice cream please?”. Samantha – Sammy – had inherited her father’s puppy eyes along with Allison’s forthright manner, and Derek knew he would be lost if he looked at those eyes for too long. 

“Yes, Daddy, please can we have some ice cream? Daddy and Uncle Scott said you would have to decide.” Charlie was looking pleadingly at his father.

That would be right, thought Derek. If the kids ended up hyperactive on sugar, it would be his fault. If he played bad cop and said no, it would be his fault...

“What about your brothers? Do they want ice cream too?” 

The children jumped up and down excitedly. 

“Yes”. The cry was one of shrill triumph. 

“With rainbow sprinkles too. Please. “ Charlie was quick to add to the deal.

“You are just like your other father” Derek reached down to stroke Charlie’s dark hair affectionately.

“I’m just like you too, Daddy. Grrrrh.” Charlie made a sort of a snarl with his face, and held a hand up scrunched into an imitation of a clawed fist – which only reminded Derek even more forcefully of Stiles.

“But remember Tyler doesn’t like chocolate” – Sammy was suddenly serious, looking up at Derek intently to make sure he did not forget this utterly critical point. She always mothered her younger brother. Derek felt a small pang – it was just the way Laura had mothered him. Perhaps it was the same for all big sisters everywhere?

"Dylan does, though." Charlie would never let Sammy have the last word. Suddenly his breath gave an excited hitch, as he remembered something.

“And Uncle Scott and Daddy said could you bring two...” Charlie’s forehead creased as he frowned in concentration, trying to remember “two... two...”

“Two cold ones?” Derek supplied. It was not a hard guess.

“YES.” Charlie was relieved. “Two cold ones. And some chips. Please.”

Derek gave a pretend sigh of protest.

“Well if I am going to do all of that, and ice cream as well, I am going to need two strong werewolf helpers to carry everything out to the pool...”

The noise from the children was ear-splitting. Through the window Derek could see Scott and Allison supervising the two younger children in the pool. Stiles was looking on, but at the noise he turned towards the house, and gave Derek a calm half smile of complete contentment, followed by a mouthed “love you”. Derek looked fondly back and mouthed “love you” as the two children jumped up and down. The flicker of pain his thoughts had brought on burned away in the vision of everything that he had, and every possibility that lay ahead in the long years that stretched out before him – before them. 

It was a vision illuminated by the bright light cast by the presence of Stiles in his life.


End file.
